It is the three hundred and forty-seventh year of the Dragonheart.
Three hundred and forty-seven years since races old and young fled from the chaos of the
DragonWars. Three hundred and forty-seven years since man, elf, and dwarf found new
homes among the clouds. Three hundred and forty-seven years since the most ancient
of races destroyed the world and remade it in their image.
- Aedius Corelyn, The Chronicles of the People of the Dragon, 347 DHR

In a time still remembered, life flourished on the surface of the orb called Aretas.
Although far from the peaceful and idyllic world that some imagine it to be, it was
a safe and comfortable home to a myriad of sentient races. This all changed over 350
years ago, when the DragonWars began. The war began quickly and spread to every
corner of the planet; dragon against dragon. In those areas where dragons where
worshipped, it became man against man; brother against brother. The war raged for seven
brutal years reshaping the face of the earth and its peoples; when it ended, the world was
shattered and the people felt abandoned by the their gods.

The dragonkind was equally devastated by the warfare and it became obvious that their
salvation lay in the hands of their victims, in the hands of mere mortals. Some were
anguished over the destruction that had been wrought, others simply realized that their
survival was impossible without the survival of the mortals. Coupled with the help
of the world's most powerful wizards and engineers, the dragons ripped chunks of land out
of the earth and raised them into the skies. The Dragons of Light sacrificed
themselves so that humanity could survive; their beating hearts magically torn from their
bodies, as the islands had been torn from the earth, to provide life to those islands.
Perhaps, they reasoned, they would survive in the memories and legends of the
people they saved; but, more importantly, they had repented. In contrast, their
eternal enemies, the ShadowDragons chose not to die. Using the power of their most
powerful priests, they supplied the islands with their lifeforce by falling into deep
slumber; a state of hibernation from which they would awake to reconquer the world in a
thousand years. It was not a choice for every dragon, some were hunted and
killed so that mortals could survive.

Now it is the year 347, DHR. Slowly, but surely the mortal survivors of the
DragonWars have adapted to their new aerial homes - the giant islands that float through
the clouds above a broken, desolate world. In the 347 years that have passed since
the end of the DragonWars, a semblance of normality has returned - schoolmasters teach to
unwilling pupils, priests proselytize to the unbelievers; merchant airships sail from
island to island while wyvern-mounted knights patrol the air above them; feuds erupt
between neighbors, wars between islanders. Over time, leaders have arisen and
nations formed. In some cases, these are the same as the ones that existed prior to
the DragonWars, while others emerged from whole cloth. Of all the island-nations,
the most powerful is the Confederacy of Sheinar, home to the People of the Dragon. To
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